What you see glaring in his sunglasses is the heat of Southern Italy. Antonio is a bicycle geek and already built his own solar bikes. A pioneer who should have been accompanied by an female adventurer, Indira, but finally Antonio will be alone on his short solar tandem !

My name is Antonio, I was born and raised in Milan until I was 16 year old, when I moved from North to South of Italy, to Salerno.

I have lived in Berlin for 7 months on an Erasmus University Program where I learnt German. I also lived in Rouen, Haute Normandie for a short time.

At present, I am living in Rome, to be more precise, in the countryside close to Rieti, in a farmhouse on a mountain. Living here allows me to connect to nature, grow my food, study and ride my bike surrounded by nature, breathing healthy air.

I’m a volunteer and activist for Greenpeace.

I practiced many sports like swimming (I still do), basketball, soccer, ski, and for about 3 years I played rugby, for sure it is my favorite sport!

Since I am a child, I’ve been interested in electricity and radio transceivers and I’ve made many experiences. When I was 10, I built a transceiver radio station on my own to communicate as far as I could! I wanted to get in touch with other planets, that’s why I began to study Astronomy when I was 18 and I joined CANA (Astronomical Center Neil Amstrong of Salerno).

I’ve been interested in wind and solar energies since I was a child. As middle school final work, I made a small working model of an eco-city powered by solar energy.

I started University in Salerno and continued it in Berlin and Rome in Electronic Engineering for Renewable Energy and Environment. Now I’m graduating, presenting a thesis on my electric-solar tandem.

I’ve been thinking of travelling in Europe with my solar tandem for the past two years… Last year a friend told me about The Sun Trip and I immediately decided to join in! I thought: « I want to solar travel with my electric tandem, why do it alone? Better do it with people that share the same goal! The Sun Trip 2015! »

I’m an urban cyclist and I’ve been travelling every day by bike only for the past 5 years: I spend my summer vacation biking, I go to university by bike, etc. I totaled 32 000 km by electric bike, charged for the most part by my home solar energy deck.

My bike is a short tandem for 2 people. I bought that bike about 3 years ago and I made immediately a total restyling leaving only the orginal frame. During these 3 year I improved many accessories and made it more robust to travel along Italy.

Some months ago I have modified a little bit the frame to host a new back carrier and solar pannel structures (roof structure).

I begin to experiment solar energy (and wind energy) on bike about 2 years ago and my dream was to travel without needs electricity from power plant and fossil.

For the Sun Trip, my tandem will be about 230-250 kg (including 2 people – about 140 kg),with a surface of 2,5 sqm of fixed solar panels (about 500 Wp) and other foldable planel for about 200-300 Wp (I’m studying that possibility).

I use central motor and front generation motor to save energy with regenerative brake with lifepo4 48 V battery.

I choose tandem because is more « eco-friendly » compared to a normal bicycle. You can travel with 2 people for more or less the same energy consuption (1,4 times more). So I will reach Astana with half the energy consuption compared the other bikes (with the same solar system).For me, that’s the most important thing!

I will need about 85-100 kWh of energy to reach Astana (8500km), but only 42-50 kWh per person! That’s about 25 kg of Co2 per person if I use net energy and about 7,5 kg Co2 per person with the solar panels. The energy needed to build the solar panels is given back in about 3 years of operation, with a life of 20 year.

Right now, I’m working hard on my tandem for my thesis at the university to find the best solutions from an a engineering method.

My next project after the Sun Trip will be to build a live-in trailer pulled by my solar tandem and travel wherever I want, without any restriction. It will be my house during my journey